The World Biofuel Day 2017 was celebrated by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas on 10th August. It aims to sensitize youths, farmers and other stakeholders about the benefits of biofuel and seek their involvement in Biofuel programme run by the Government.
Every year 10th August is observed as World Bio-Fuel Day in a bid to create awareness about non fossil-fuels (Green Fuels). Sir Rudolph Diesel (inventor of the diesel engine), On this day in 1893, for the first time successfully ran mechanical engine with Peanut Oil. This experiment predicted that vegetable oil is going to replace the fossil fuels in the next century to fuel different mechanical engines. Thus to mark this extraordinary achievement, World Biofuel Day is observed. At the start of the 20th century, Henry Ford planned to fuel his Model Ts with ethanol, and early diesel engines were shown to run on peanut oil.
A biofuel is a fuel that is produced through biological processes, such as agriculture and anaerobic digestion, rather than fossil fuels, such as coal and petroleum.
Petrol and diesel are typically ancient biofuels. But, Since they are made from decomposed plants and animals that have been buried in the ground for millions of years, they are called fossil fuels. Biofuels are similar, except that they're made from plants grown today.
Government of India is focusing much on blending petroleum with a biofuel—ethanol. This is the same thing as in alcoholic drinks, except that it's made from sugarcane. Other crops that are extensively used for biofuels are : corn and jetropha.
But at the same time there has been a lot of criticism about using the biofuels since growing the crops, making fertilizers and pesticides, and processing the plants into fuel consumes a lot of energy. So much so, that its argued more energy is indeed wasted producing biofuels. Also, because much of the energy used in production comes from coal and natural gas, biofuels don't replace as much oil as they use.Another factor of this argument is that crops would better be used as a source of food rather than fuel. Since a lot of crop is needed to produce usable quantity of biofuels.
There are many branches to this root topic, and comprises both white and black shades. Science with it advancements and farmers with their toil are expected to take the present to a better and sustainable future.
